The Planters' advocate. (Cartersville, Ga.) 1875-187?, November 29, 1875, Image 1
The Planters’ Advocate
A. & ff, a, MARSCHALK, Editors and Proprietors,
LIFE’S AUTUMN.
1 lu* last wan petals leave the rose,
The latest swallows plume for flight!
1 teW K ° ne where no one knows,
U itn dead men’s love, and spent vear’s liht
And warm hearts buried out of sight. ’
lied roses are the crown of youth •
i. * h t TiJ rm ]i 3 ht strikes on lover's lips:
1-iiiKh through and fondle happy mouth,
r 'i" lenllmr ’ BWWt time slii>,
Dwth hurries on with fufl eclipse.
So short, w smll O, let not Death
IV f*Jed flowers and wine,
Ti?n. h Kry for the i°yous breath
•hat dreams not of the year’s decline,
h i.tvs his cold white mouth to thine!
1 ling to the flying hours; and yet
Let one pure hope, one great desire,
Like song on dying lips lie set,
i hat ere we fall in scattered fire.
Our hopes may lift the world’s heart higher.
Here in the autumn month of Time,
before the great New Year can break,
•Some little way our feet should climb,
‘>ome little mark our words should make
l'or liberty and manhood’s sake!
Clear brain and sympathetic heart
Spirit on flame with love for man ;
Hands swift to labor, slow to part—
II any good since time iiegan,
i he soul can fashion, such souls can.
Arid so when we are dead and past
rhe undying world will some day reach
Its glorious hour of dawn at last,
M “V SSh.
A MODEL BOY.
The first time I saw Pino he was
lying on the wall of the public garden
in Venice, fishing with a pin-hook.
Ho apparently consisted of two brown
hare legs and a thing of shreds and
patches called trousers. The rest-of
him was hanging over the lagoon.
Halloo, young man,” said I; “stay
v here you are a minute. I want to
make a sketch of you.”
lli' lilted his head and showed me
•me of thoes delicious child-faces that
belong only to Da Vinci’s angels.
I wo great innocent brown eyes looked
frankly and steadily into mine. The
mouth wore that sweet shadowy smile
which Leonardo cast over the lips of
all his women and children.
I extended my hand. The young
fisherman dropped his pin-hook and
~,75 . dln gy httle paw therein.
1 his is more than mere circum
'tjuce, I said; “this is an affinity. I
will take this child unto my heart and
iflopt him while I stay in Venice. I
;im a poor lonely Bohemian; this de-
boy is also a Bohemian, judg
ing from his elothes. Let us be beg
gars and happy together.”
1 ended by proposing that he should
>lmre my humble home and fortunes,
provided his mother would let him’
(TGclll hrneVino, amuse
the dogs, make himself generally iLseful,
ami pose for me by the hour.
“ I will,” he cried, tumbling off* the
wall. “Come along, Illustrissimo.”
So we went home to the du\l abode
of poverty. I introduced Pipo to the
World, Sin, and the Flesh. Don’t
tremble in your virtuous shoes. They
were only my dogs—poor outcast curs
that drifted with the tide in the lagoon
to my door. They were lean, hungry
eyed creatures, always on the alert for
blows and kicks. What better friends
could an unrecognized artist have
than three drowning,starving, miserable
dogs? They were four-footed epigrams
against fortune.
It was too late to begin work that
I could only form high hopes of
I’ipo on canvas. We partook of a
frugal repast. Pipo was initiated into
the use of the fork. Then I offered
for his consideration the first of a
series of lectures on the manly art of
washing plates. Hitherto the dogs had
neatly polished them and I had merely
touched them up with the towel. This
is the poetry of the artist’s life.
And yet, now that I have made me
a name, now that friends and honor
and fame are mine, I long with a
wistful sadness for those dear old days
in far-off Venice. Something I have
lost which then made life glorious. If
I could only step out into my loggia at
sunset, after a hard day’s work, and
Hear in the rustle of the trees in the
garden, in the roar of the surf at the
Udo, in the vesper bell sweeping over
the lagoon, “The world is an infinite
possibility. Go forth in the might of
thy genius and youth and conquer the
realm.”
I painted Pipo just as he was, in his
rags and his dirt and his angelic im
pishness. I wanted to paint him
semi-nude, for the sake of that ripe
golden skin of his. But I felt that my
picture was destined for American eyes
and I merely enlarged the holes in his
garments.
Pipo began to manifest an alarming
fondness for brushes and colors. “Is
it possible that I may prove the
Cimabue to this Giotto?” I queried.
“Giotto tended sheep and Pipo fished
with a pin-hook. Better that he
should dredge mud from Venetian
canals all his life. He shall never
wield the brush with my consent.”
This model boy of mine had one
vice which all my efforts could not
uproot from his youthful breast. He
had the face of an angel, but he used
language that would have brought a
blush to the cheeks of a shipload of
pirates.
Pipo soon settled to his own satisfac
tion that when I went to America he
was to go likewise. I encouraged the
idea from educational motives.
“Pipo, how long is it since you
washed your face?”
Pipo counted his fingers.
“A week.”
“Well, when you go to America,
i*ipo, my boy, you’ll have to wash your
face every day, and your hands too, for
there, my Venetian aristocrat, the
people have a plebeian prejudice in
favor of cleanliness.”
Pipo went off and, returning, said,
with a Confidential smile, “Me clean
now; me go to America. ”
Pipo came to me shortlv after and
with a graceful how offered me a
cigarette from a package in which he
had just invested. It was Saturday;
our weeks work was done; we had
squared accounts, and Pipo felt like a
millionaire.
I accepted and lighted it. “Look
here, young man, when you go to
America you’ll have to give up the use
of the weed. In the land of the free,
and so forth, my friend, little bovs of
eight are not expected to he quite as
far advanced in dissipation as old fel
lows of twenty.”
Thus did I administer moral instruc
tion in small doses to my untutored
savage.
Things began to look black in the lit
tle old house on the lagoon. Pipo and
I had been subsisting for some time on
shipwreck rations. Never a foot
pressed my humble threshold with
intent to order pictures. Robinson
Crusoe and Friday were not more en
tirely alone on the Island than were Pipo
and I there in that water-bound cottage
with only our own bright dreams and
the prophetic glory of sea and sky to
keep us from utter wretchedness." I
was up to the ears in debt with Pipo at
this time. But he understood my
position and did not" dun me. He was
a dear good fellow, this Pipo of mine,
and would rather have gone cigarette
less to the end of his davs than have
brought me face to face with insolvency
by asking for centimes.
“I am poor, Pipo,” I said, at last,
openly and calmly; “poor as a church
mouse or an artist.”
“I’ll tell you something, padrone
mio, that will bring you good luck,”
answered Pipo, looking at me with his
great earnest eyes.
“ What is it?”
“You see, me want two cents—me
buy.”
1 collected the required amount with
some difficulty and cautioned Pipo to he
careful how he laid it out.
He came back with a small cage in
liis hand, containing three great black
crickets.
“ They bring you good luck, padrone.
Lverybody in Venice keeps them in the
spring.”
“ Well, I haven’t much faith in them,
myself, not being a child of the south,
sunken in superstition and slavery, but
we will hang them over the fire Diace
aim see wnauturns up.
The crickets -sang on bravely for a
week and did their best to bring me
good fortune, I have no doubt, poor
beasts. One morning I took down the
cage, and behold there were only two
legless torsos of crickets. Their am
putated limbs lay about the floor of the
cage in expressive confusion. The
third had emigrated. Later I found
him half cremated behind the fire
place. “Pipo,” I said mournfully,
“your crickets are a delusion and a
snare.”
One morning, not long after, I was
painting as usual, and Pipo was posing
patiently before me. Suddenly there
came a loud ring at the door. What
could it be? Creditors I had none and
visitors never. The dogs began to
howl. I looked at myself. I wore a
coat with fifty-two patches; I told Pipo
to keep his attitude. I put on a bold
face, and, by way of encouragement,
composed as I went to the door anew
paragraph for my future biography in
the “Livesof Distinguished American
Artists:” “It is related of him that
even at this early stage of his career he
had such confidence in the might and
power of his genius that he did not hes
itate to answer his own door-bell in a
ragged coat.”
A white-haired gentleman stepped
into the hall. The dogs swarmed over
him at once.
“ I have been told there was an art
ist living here,” he said, looking about
him. “ Down, my dears, down, I beg
of you.”
“ I am the artist, or at least I try to
be one.”
I thought his face looked familiar. I
remembered then who he w r as. The
winter I was in Rome I heard a good
deal about him —a benevolent old fel
low who hunted out poor artists and
helped them on. He had had a son
mad after art, and refused to let him
study. The boy ran aw T ay from home,
came to Europe, minted awhile
Dope or a brilliant career, and then rail
ing ill died of sheer poverty and noth
ing else. And so the father did what
little he could to atone for his fault,
Oh, I remembered him well. I ushered
him into the studio.
“That’s a very nice little hoy,” he
said, pattingPipo’s shaven pate. ‘‘ Docs
he go to school?”
“He does not. He revels in igno
rance and smokes.”
“Ah, I see you are painting his por
trait —a young fisherman. Beautiful
thing! Is it ordered?”
I forced a palid smile. “ Orders are
not plentiful in this establishment. I
am painting entirely for glory at pres
ent.
“ Then w ould you allow me to secure
it for a friend at home who is making a
collection of native art? Could you
finish it by the end of the month? And
I know that artists must have brushes
and colors. I should like to leave an
instalment, if you will permit me.”
He laid a purse on the table.
“Nevermind thanks; I had a son
once myself. Come up and see me at
the hotel.”
With his dear old face all aglow with
kindness he started for the door. He
CARTERSVILLE, GEORGIA, MONDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 29, 1875.
waved me good-bye with his umbrella.
Come up and see me and we’ll talk it
all over.”
“Come to my arms, O most blessed
of I lpos. It’s all through you and
your crickets!”
. Who says that ravens no longer min
ister to the needs of hungry prophets ?
V\ ho says that angels walk not abroad
m human guise ?
Ihe dogs barked for delight, and
I ipo and I danced a jig for joy.
I’ rom that day onward life prospered
amain. Friends gathered about, my
orders assaulted me on every side, and
I exchanged the picturesque poverty of
the house on the lagoon for the sumptu
ous hall of a palace on the Grand Canal.
I ipo stayed with me until I left Venice.
He pleaded hard to he taken to Ameri
ca, but I felt that there he would be
misunderstood. His innocent fondness
for the weed would be labelled “ Juve
nile depravity;” his poetic raggedness
would he accounted squalor.
So I left him in that beautiful city,
where the marble domes rise from the
water like great white lilies, and the
boats dance over the sea like scarlet
winged birds. There, where life is all
one golden afternoon, I left my Pipo.
V e had borne joy and sorrow together
and the parting was hard. And wher
ever I go I carry about with me the
memory of two innocent child-eyes
which finds its way continually on to
my canvas And when I hear the
critics say, “How much this face re
minds me of Da Vinci,” I laugh half
wistfully, and think of the tender child
mouth that smiled up at me from the
garden wall that lonely summer even
ing in far-off* Venice.
The Boys’ Rooms.
We wish especially, says Scaibner’s
to urge upon mothers the propriety of
giving up to the boys, as soon as they
reach the age of twelve or fourteen,
one room (not a bedchamber), for whose
(reasonably) good order they shall be
responsible, and which they shall con
sider wholly their own. The floor
should be uncarpeted, of oiled wood;
the furniture of the same material.
Let it be papered, curtained, decorated
according to the boys’ own fancy; if
the taste is bad, they will be interested
after awhile in correcting it. There
should be plain bookcases, a big solid
taole in the center, by all means an
open fire, and room after; that, for Joe’s
tools, or Sam’s cabinet of minerals; for
chess and checker boards, or any other
game which is deemed proper. To
this room the boys should be allowed
to invite their friends, and learn how
to be hospitable hosts even to the ex
tent of an innocent little feast now r
and then. Father,'mother and sisters
should refrain from entering it except
as guests; and our word for it, they will
be doubly honored and welcomed when
they do come.
Somebody will ask, no doubt, what
is the use of pampering boys in this
way, or of catering to them with
games and company? Simply because
they will have the amusement, the
games and company somehow and
somewhere; and if not under their
father’s roof, with such quiet surround
ings as befit those who are to be bred
as gentlemen, the games may be gam
bling, and the company and supper
those which’the nearest tavern affords.
As for the cost, no money is ill spent
which develops in a right direction a
boy’s healthy character of idiosyncra
sies at the most perilous period of his
life, or which helps to soften and
humanize him, and to make more dear
and attractive his home and family.
If it can be ill spared, let it be with
drawn for this purpose from dress,
household luxury, the sum laid by for a
rainy day —even from other charities
and duties. We do not wish to help
the lad sow his wild oats, but take care
that the oats are not wild, and are
thoroughly well sown.
A Mystery in Maine. —A large
mound stands near the Maine Central
track, about a mile from the village of
Cumberland Centre, and in plain sight
from the road. Mr. Sweat, a track
man, has several times lately seen two
men standing near the mound and
pointing toward it. Last Tuesday
morning the mound was discovered to
then down five feet. The prints of a
box w’ere plainlv discernable, tw T o and
a half feet long by one and a quarter
feet broad. Mr. Sweat’s description of
one of the men answers to a man named
Elisha Philips, aged about seventy
years, who is a native of the village,
and was convicted twenty or twenty
five years ago in Massachusetts for rob
bing a Boston bank. At the time he
pretended to be able to point out where
the treasure was bid to the officers, but
ran away from them and w as afterwards
recaptured. His term of imprison
ment must have expired not very long
ago, and the villagers think he has re
turned for the bank treasure.
Here’s -richness! A young man
named Rowe was arrested in Muncie,
Ind., Tuesday, charged with stealing
money from the eyes of a corpse, with
which he was sitting up. The amount
taken was seventy-five cents.
Here’s philosophy: “The particles
that day before yesterday, were grains
of wheat, and yesterday, were nerve
and muscle, to-day are sparkling
thought. Hence life; hence oysters
and all other folks.”
PLANTATION TOPICS.
NORTHERN EXPERIENCE ON SOUTHERN
SOIL.
The natives of any country or region,
accustomed to a routine handed down
from father to son for generations, are
very apt to be blind to the faults of
the system of agriculture practiced
am ong them. It is easier to run in the
old ruts than to break out new paths.
It requires no outlay of thought, and
they follow the beaten track, no matter
how devious. A stanger, coming in
contact with conditions of climate, soil
and labor, new to him, finding the
routine to which he lias been accustomed
broken up, and being compelled to
study the novel problems before him,
is far more likely to find new and bet
ter ways of doing things. If candid
and free from prejudice, he will examine
with respect the methods pursued by
his new neighbors, many of the details
of which are the results of long experi
ence, and will adopt them, so far as he
finds them apparently good; but while
learning many valuable lessons, he will,
in return, teach those around him—
that Is if they, too, be found willing to
learn—some things which they, from
being so wedded to their old ways,
would not otherwise have found out.
We may laugh at the blunders which
the northern farmer, commencing op
erations in the south, is pretty sure to
make, even if he be not particularly
conceited, but, ten to one, he will, if
he perseveres, make a better southern
farmer than a majority of those to the
manor born. A correspondent of the
Country Gentleman, writing from
Aiken, S. C., furnishes a case in point,
and also a good illustration of the ad
vantages which the south holds out to
immigrants from the north and west.
The writer was a New Yorker —a
business man —broken down in health,
and seeking, first of all, rest and recu
peration. At Aiken he found a large
number of old residents, who, origi
nally brought there to die, had re
mained there summer and winter, and
in the course of years had entirely re
covered their strength. The testimony
as to their former condition, and the
evidence of their complete restoration,
led him to purchase a plantation near
Aiken, and enter upon the novel life
of a southern farmer.
Sunlight, fresh air, the opportunity
of outdoor exercise everv dav (with
•' j
such as dampness, malaria, etc.,) con
stitute the remedies which nature
furnishes, in favored localities, for the
healing of dsseased lungs, or indeed
for almost any debilitated condition of
the body. These he found there, and
they brought back his lost strength,
and he became again a well man. It
is with his farming experience, how
ever, that we have to do. His article
is too long to be copied in full, but we
make copious extracts.
LIME FOR COTTON.
We planted the first year but one
acre of cotton. From reading agricul
tural papers, and from observation, I
had developed a theory that cdtton
needed a great deal of lime. So in
planting my experimental acre, I re
solved to test that idea. I selected a
piece of land with a sandy loam on
the surface, but with a subsoil of yel
low clay only about six inches from the
top of the ground. About half the
acre had been at one time a garden;
the other half had never been manured.
The rows were laid off three and a
half feet a part; a furrow was opened,
subsoiled, and two hundred and forty
pounds of Peruvian Guano (Chincha)
sprinkled in them. Four furrows, of
a light one-horse plough, were then
thrown into a bed over each manured
furrow’, a shallow furrow was made in
the bed with a narrow “bull tongue”
plough, exactly over the guano, the
cotton seed was sprinkled in this furrow,
two bushels to the acre, and covered
with 'a flat board fastened upon a
plough-stock.
All this was, of course, done by the
direction of my foreman, as I knew’
nothing of preparing land for cotton.
Now came my part, and when I ordered
three barrels of air-slacked(stone)lime
to be sowed broadcast upon the surface
of the ground, over the newly-planted
seed, there were predictions that the
crop would be burned up by the lime,
fife o¥ oWyed, andlhe"lime was spread
as directed. The cotton came up in a
few days and at once turned such a
dark, greasy color, that my negro
hands shook their heads, declaring that
they never saw cotton look like that
before. My foreman, however, was
delighted, and foretold great things
from the experiment. It was tended
in the usual way, except that it grew r
so fast that it could be ploughed but
twice, instead of four times —the
ordinary number. We had a drouth
of over five weeks duration in July
and August, but the subsoiling enabled
the cotton to endure it without losing
many forms. We gathered from the
acre one thousand eight hundred and
sixty-seven pounds of seed cotton,
which, after being ginned and baled,
sold in Augusta for a few cents over
one hundred and four dollars.
EXPERIENCE IN PLOUGHING.
My farm seemed determined to
make the stranger welcome in every
way, and produced that year more
fruit than ever since that time. The
experiment with the one acre of cot
ton had answered so well that I had
determined to plant more another
year; accordingly, the plows were
started early in November, and in a
few weeks my cotton field of twenty
two acres was broken. A portion was
broken with a two-horse Watt plough,
and part with the ordinary (single
horse) southern half-shovel. This
was an experiment as to the effect of
using different ploughs. I was very
ignorant of all farm matters except
stock; natural taste and surroundings
had given me knowledge of cattle,
mules and horses. Of hogs and sheep
I had yet to learn. In the neighbor
hood, there was great difference of
opinion as to whether deep ploughing
(which with us means about six inches)
or shallow ploughing (three or four
inches in depth) was best suited to our
clay soils. Most southern farmers
ploughed in the old way, and many of
them made good crops. Some of the
northern immigrants followed the
southern fashion; others, like myself,
experimented cautiously, and in one or
two cases a double plow was used upon
a light soil, with a sandy subsoil, making
it for some years less fertile than when
only the top soil was stirred.
A CASE FOR DEEP PLOUGHING.
If there was any one thing I was
sure of as certainly suited to the long,
dry summers of South Carolina up
lands, I should have said subsoil plough
ing was that thing. So I subsoiled all
my cotton ground in March; put on
most of it about two hundred pounds
of an approved commercial fertilizer
to the acre, bedded —thus burying my
manure about five inches deep—and on
the 15th of April I planted my seed
with a Dow Law planter. Three acres
and a half of the nineteen acres had
been a peach orchard; this I treated
differently. In the previous October
(being satisfied that the orchard was too
old to be profitable), I had the trees
dug up, piled, and during the winter
burned, roots and all. Now my nearest
neighbor, from whom I purchased my
farm, told me that he had never suc
ceeded in making anything grow on
that ground except peaches. He had
planted it in corn, which died of some
mysterious trouble when about three
feet in height; later, he sowed oats,
which had a similar fate at a much less
altitude. This was unpromising. On
examination of the soil, I found it on the
surface like a bed of ashes. When
you walked over it, you broke through
a sort of crust; your shoes were cov
ered with a grey, powdery dust, and it
fpmned as if, but for the crust, a high
soil aiM n iif/i rpninvpf] the ton
which was to be found at varying depths,
but never more than six inches, below
the surface.
Here seemed to me a case for deep
ploughing. I reasoned that the surface
being so poor the subsoil could do no
harm on top, and putting the Watt
plough at work, I broke the piece,
turning up about two inches of subsoil
to the surface and afterward, with a
long fifteen inch bull-tongue, we brought
up more of the red clay, and mixed the
whole thoroughly with the surface soil.
Early in March I hauled out and put
into the drills fifty-two ox loads of
poor “lot manure” to the acre, beneath
which was put one hundred pounds of
the “Stonewall” (an English manure).
This was bedded and planted upon,
but not sufficiently deep, as the first
rain left the strawy manure exposed in
many places and ruined the stand.
The crop came up very quickly; the
seed had been rolled in land plaster,
and the first rain moistened it, and
‘plaster retaining the moisture, the cot
ton soon showed above the soil in long,
straight rows of broadish two-leaved
plants. The stand on most of the land
was fair, and fine weather, and the
stimulus of the manure, caused a con
siderable growth in a few days. The
crop was worked with a half sweep, bar
side to the row at the first working, the
middle being cleaned with a full sweep.
After the first working, the full twenty
inch sweep was used and the cotton
plowed four times in quick succession;
it was hoed to a stand before the first
ploughing, and once afterwards to clean
out grass between the rows. The re
sult on nineteen of the acres was four
teen bales of about three hundred and
seventy-five pounds each.
don’t subsoil pipe-clay land.
The other three acres proved a total
failure, for the reason that this field had
fiiio’ me clay,
where I had so ingeniously dug ditches
(which held water instead of draining
the land) with my subsoil plough, the
cotton on the three acres died—with
“blight,” my neighbors said; blight
being a name given to anything which
kills cotton, by first causing the leaves
to turn a rusty red, and then die and
fall off; the entire plant dying also
about the same time, leaving a few
half-grown, partly open bolls, within
which can be seen some sickly white
flocks of cotton of almost no value.
RULES DEDUCED FROM EXPERIENCE.
From the experience of that year I
deduced a few general rules which are,
I think, applicable to any land of a
similar character in the South Carolina
uplands, where pine is the principal
timber:
1. To make manure, keep your
yards well filled with “pine straw,
(pine needles, used for bedding cattle,
horses, etc. ;)also bed your horses and
mules heavily, and have a cellar, or
some shelter, under which manure can
be kept dry, and protected from the
sun and wind.
2. Subsoil all land having red clay
or yellow clay subsoil, but do not sub
soil pipe clay land, unless first under
drained.
3. Work a crop as fast as possible,
and try to lay by early. If not large
enough to shade the ground, and have
to continue work, plough so as not to
stir the surface more than half an inch
in depth.
4. Lot or stable manure makes the
best cotton if freely used.
5. Make your land very rich, and
you will save in work. On very rich
land two ploughing? and one hoeing are
enough; poor land will need four or
five ploughing?, and two hoeings —
sometimes three.
FALL PLANTED SMALL GRAINS.
. During the three years spoken of,
oats, spring and fall planting, had been
tried, demonstrating the superiority of
fall-planted crops. Corn had lieen
planted every year, always with satis
factory results. Sweet potatoes had
also been an annual crop, hut uniform
ly turned out badly, caused by my ig
norance the first two seasons, and
absence from home the last. Cattle,
horses, sheep, poultry, hogs, etc., had all
been raised successfully, and the prof
its of the farm increased from these
sources; financially the farming had
been successful.
HOW THE STRANGER WAS TREATED.
Best of all, my health was complete
ly restored, my lungs were pronounced
sound again by the highest medical
authority, and I, who went a stranger
among a recently-conquered people,
had made valued friends. Never
during these years has any discourtesy
been shown, but, on the contrary, kind
ness, as unexpected as it was welcome,
was lavished upon me. During ill
ness in my family, a Southren lady
came to our home, and remained nurs
ing and housekeeping for more than
two months, “because,” she said, “I
could not bear to think of you all in
trouble, so far from your relatives, with
no one to help you ;” and to this day
she makes light of the service, and
claims to have “enjoyed the visit.”
This is our experience with our white
neighbors.
HOW ABOUT THE BLACKS?
“How about the blacks?” someone
will ask. If carefully selected, and
properly treated, they are very good
servants, possessing, in many instances,
the rare quality of personal attachment
and devotion. The generation now ?
growing up will not be as reliable, as
truthful, or as hones*. mvefi 1 tnem
oloimo Tiva.seJboig'* wfways so danger
ous ; through their newspapers they
have been made regtless and pleasure
loving, and the few r educated specimens
that have yet appeared have shown,
many of them, a personal hostility to
the whites, and a dislike of hard work,
which argues ill for the future of a
State w here they are in the majority.
They are, however, dying much, more
rapidly than the whites, and this, com
bined with emigration, will, within the
next decade, place the political power
again in the possession of the white
population —“a consummation devoutly
to be washed.
HOW FARMERS WASTE THEIR MANURE.
The Crop Reports of the Georgia
State Agricultural Department are in
structive documents, always containing,
in addition to consolidated returns from
all parts of the State, some useful in
formation or suggestions. Here is
what Mr. Janes, the able and efficient
Commissioner says in his September
Report, on the waste of manure:
It is a matter of surprise, that only
fifteen per cent, of the farmers of
Georgia save, under shelter, the manure
from their stock. This is a record of
deliberate and unpardonable waste.
Animal manure exposed to the leaching
effects of rain, and the evaporation of
the sun, lose a large portion of their
soluble plant food. Experiment shows
that nearly one-half the value of animal
manures are lost by such exposure.
Farmers will consult economy by
sheltering all the manure saved on their
farms. In composting manures that
have been exposed, it w ill be necessary
to use more concentrated material to
supply the w r aste thus occasioned.
By composting such manures, at least
six hundred of acid phosphate, and
fifty pounds of sulphate of ammonia
should be used to the ton, or six h
pnogpnate,Composted with one thousand
four hundred pounds of manure and
cotton seed.
LONG MOSS FOR IRISH POTATOES.
The Tampa (Fla.) Guardian, of the
31st ult., says: “Mr. Samuel T. A.
Branch has given us a novel way of
planting Irish potatoes and preparing
moss for mattresses at the same time,
which is indeed a good idea: First
dig out your trenches as deep as you
desire them, then put a layer of green
moss at the bottom; cut your potatoes
and lay them on the moss, then put a
layer of moss over them and throw
over your dirt. Though the season be
extremely dry the moss will keep moist
sufficient to give you a larger yield of
potatoes than’ you ever had before,
white and clean as if they had been
freshly washed in water, and the moss
is now thoroughly dried and killed, and
by washing and beating it a little you
have a nice lot of moss ready for mat
tress-making.”
Boys, if a man comes along with a
buggy and asks you to take a ride, do
you peg it for home. He wants to
steal you, and prove to the world that
the average detective is no sharper than
the average man who is not a detective.
VOL. 1G —NO. 49
PARAGRAPHS OF THE PERIOD.
To do business a man must have
dollars and sense.
One of the darkest moments in a
boy’s life is when he suddenly reflects
that he has just swallowed a dose of
castor oil unconditionally.
If, in instructing a child, you are
vexed with it for want of adroitness,
try, if you have never tried before, to
write with you left hand, and then re
member that a child is all left hand.
It is estimated that the child popula
tion between the age of six and sixteen
in the United States and Territories is
about 10,288,000, and that about 300,-
000 teachers are needed to educate this
host of future citizens.
A Louisville girl was shot in the
foot a day or two ago, and the doctors
are now engaged in mining for the
ball. One of them has worked his
passage into the foot for so great a dis
tance that they are obliged to let his
provisions down to him by a rope.
Many very good people are annoyed
by sleepiness in church. The follow
ing remedy is recommended: Lift
the foot seven inches from the floor,
and hold it in suspense without sup--
port for the limb, and repeat the rem
edy if the attack returns.
It is estimated that the yield of
gold and silver from the mines of
Colorado Territory for the first six
months of the present year foot up in
gold $1,052,700, and silver $1,004,-
139. This is not supposed to include
the products of the placer mines of
the territory for that period.
Either a man must be content
with poverty all his life, or else be
willing to deny himself some luxuries
and save, to lav .the base of Independ
ence in the future. But if a man
defies the future, and spends all he
earns (whether his earnings be one
dollar or ten dollars every day)let him
look for lean and hungry want at some
future time —for it will surely come, no
matter what he thinks.
The Solace of Age.—
Howe’er o’er youth’s unclouded sky
The mists of grief may fall,
And lift to heaven the pleading eye
And prayer’s imploring call—
Be sure that riper age will bring
Occasions few nor brief,
When mercy’s overshading wing
Must send thee sweet relief.
Be sure that when the hair grows gray,
And .EQijtfc Js&em dim .awl jar.
Bo that then the boon of prayer
Most shows its priceless worth —
A blessed guard against despair.
A link ’tween heaven and earth.
When Mother Eve the tempting fruit
Plueked for her only kin,
She then and there did institute
A precedent for sin.
She knew the apple tasted sweet,
But thought not of its price,
And said to Adam, “ Let us eat;
It’s naughty, but it’s nice.”
For several years past an Italian ge
ologist has made a study of the trem
blings or quakings of the earth, and
more especially those which are so ex
tremely light as not to be perceptible
save by pendulums placed in the fields
of microscopes. In one year he recog
nized between 5,000 and 6,000 of these
movements; and graphically represent
ing the same over many years by a
curve, he finds that the line corre
sponds neither with the thermometric
curve nor with the tidal phenomena,
nor can it be brought into any relation
with the distances or positions of the
sun or moon. With the barometric
curve, however, it is otherwise, and it
appears that, in the large majority of
the cases, the intensity of the move
ments augmented with the lowering of
the barometric column, as it—as the
investigator states —the gaseous masses
imprisoned in the superficial layers of
the earth escaped more easily when the
weight of the atmosphere diminished,
which certainly is an interesting fact.
—N. Y. Sun.
Old Time Detectives.
A New York paper speaking of the
inefficiency and corruption of the detec
tives of the present time relates this
anecdote of a detective of the last
generation:
One of our banks kept losing money,
only in small sums, yet the loss was
constant and mysterious. A celebrated
detective was called in. “Let. everv
saia. —oena in everybody, one by one,
who has had a chance to steal.” So
the president, the cashier, the tellers,
the book-keepers and clerks had a pri
vate interview with the deteetive.
Every one in the bank knew the pur
pose of the visit, and all but one were
slightly nervous and uncomfortable un
der the searching questions of the
chief. The last who entered was a
nephew of the president. He walked
in cool, unembarrassed and indifferent,
and with an air that said “proceed.
He was dismissed as well as the rest.
The detective said not a word, left the
bank, and in one week returned. He
had been shadowing the president’s
nephew. In a clear, fair hand, was
written out the whereabouts of the
young man for the past six days, the
company he kept, what he drank, the
hours he spent on the road, his night
orgies, and all his movements by night
and by day. Nobody in the bank
knows to-day that the president’s
nephew was the thief. That his health
was not good, that he was traveling in
Europe, and that his place in the
bank was filled by another, was well
known. The bank was saved from
robbery, the family from dishonor, the
detective commended for his skill and
prudence, and all the happier for a
check of SI,OOO.